224 PIN-TAILED SAND GROVSE. 



P. exustus and P. Senegalensis, "very good eating, the 

 flesh, of the thigh especially being peculiarly white and 

 tender. However our Dragoman was an artist of no 

 ordinary culinary skill." 



It is almost a pity, however, to talk about anything 

 so sensuous as a dinner off a bird so beautiful as the 

 Pin-tailed Sand Grouse. Mr. Tristram, whose experience 

 as a practical ornithologist is very great, says, "I 

 think, on close inspection, there is scarcely a bird in 

 nature which surpasses the male P. alchata in richness 

 of colouring or delicacy of pencilling" — a fact which 

 I am sure my artist will verify with his usual skill. 



The adult male has the head, nape, and back, a 

 beautiful rich dead olive green, more or less shaded 

 with darker, each feather being edged narrowly with 

 black or blackish. The upper tail coverts rich fawn, 

 finely barred and pencilled transversely with black. 

 The greater wing coverts lighter olive green, with a 

 more decidedly marked black border, while the lesser 

 wing coverts are of a rich maroon, distinctly bordered 

 with white. Primaries grey, with black glossy shafts; 

 secondaries grey, bordered with white; tertiaries dark 

 brown, with white inner webs, and also distinctly 

 edged with white. Tail feathers grey, barred with 

 dusky, and shaded with fawn-colour on the outer web, 

 while the extremity of each feather for about half an 

 inch is pure white; the long filiform middle tail 

 feathers partaking of the olive green colours of the 

 back, while below they share with this aspect of the 

 tail feathers their rich dark brown. Side of the 

 head and a band across the crop, upwards of an inch 

 broad, rich dark fawn-colour, the latter being edged 

 above and below by a line of black, which separates 

 it above from the light olive greenish brown neck and 



